第9章

She would understand everything,perhaps;at least she would know that the prisoner's release was to please her,but even if she did not,no harm would be done,a white man's life would be saved,and his real motive would not be suspected.He turned with feverish eagerness to the lodge.Wachita had disappeared--probably to join the other women.It was well;she would not suspect him.

The tree to which the doomed man was bound was,by custom,selected nearest the chief's lodge,within its sacred enclosure,with no other protection than that offered by its reserved seclusion and the outer semicircle of warriors'tents before it.To escape,the captive would therefore have to pass beside the chief's lodge to the rear and descend the hill toward the shore.Elijah would show him the way,and make it appear as if he had escaped unaided.As he glided into the shadow of a group of pines,he could dimly discern the outline of the destined victim,secured against one of the larger trees in a sitting posture,with his head fallen forward on his breast as if in sleep.But at the same moment another figure glided out from the shadow and approached the fatal tree.

It was Wachita!

He stopped in amazement.But in another instant a flash of intelligence made it clear.He remembered her vague uneasiness and solicitude at his agitation,her sudden disappearance;she had fathomed his perplexity,as she had once before.Of her own accord she was going to release the prisoner!The knife to cut his cords glittered in her hand.Brave and faithful animal!

He held his breath as he drew nearer.But,to his horror,the knife suddenly flashed in the air and darted down,again and again,upon the body of the helpless man.There was a convulsive struggle,but no outcry,and the next moment the body hung limp and inert in its cords.Elijah would himself have fallen,half-fainting,against a tree,but,by a revulsion of feeling,came the quick revelation that the desperate girl had rightly solved the problem!She had done what he ought to have done--and his loyalty and manhood were preserved.That conviction and the courage to act upon it--to have called the sleeping braves to witness his sacrifice--would have saved him,but it was ordered otherwise.

As the girl rapidly passed him he threw out his hand and seized her wrist."Who did you do this for?"he demanded.

"For you,"she said,stupidly.

"And why?"

"Because you no kill him--you love his squaw.""HIS squaw!"He staggered back.A terrible suspicion flashed upon him.He dashed Wachita aside and ran to the tree.It was the body of the Indian agent!Aboriginal justice had been satisfied.The warriors had not caught the MURDERER,but,true to their idea of vicarious retribution,had determined upon the expiatory sacrifice of a life as valuable and innocent as the one they had lost.

"So the Gov'rment hev at last woke up and wiped out them cussed Digger Minyos,"said Snapshot Harry,as he laid down the newspaper,in the brand-new saloon of the brand-new town of Redwood."I see they've stampeded both banks of the Minyo River,and sent off a lot to the reservation.I reckon the soldiers at Fort Cass got sick o'sentiment after those hounds killed the Injun agent,and are beginning to agree with us that the only 'good Injun'is a dead one.""And it turns out that that wonderful chief,that them two packers used to rave about,woz about as big a devil ez any,and tried to run off with the agent's wife,only the warriors killed her.I'd like to know what become of him.Some says he was killed,others allow that he got away.I've heerd tell that he was originally some kind of Methodist preacher!--a kind o'saint that got a sort o'spiritooal holt on the old squaws and children.""Why don't you ask old Skeesicks?I see he's back here ag'in--and grubbin'along at a dollar a day on tailin's.He's been somewhere up north,they say.""What,Skeesicks?that shiftless,o'n'ry cuss!You bet he wusn't anywhere where there was danger of fighting.Why,you might as well hev suspected HIM of being the big chief himself!There he comes--ask him."And the laughter was so general that Elijah Martin--alias Skeesicks--lounging shyly into the bar-room,joined in it weakly.

End